Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 05.djvu/191

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INDY
151
INFANT MORTALITY

Flynn, William Haywood, and Carlo Tresca.

INDY, PAUL MARIE THÉODORE VINCENT D', a French composer and pianist. Born in Paris in 1851, at the age of fourteen he was a master of the piano. After the Franco-Prussian War in which he served, he became secretary of the Société Nationale de Musique, while its president was the famous musician César Franck. When the latter died in 1890 D'Indy became president. In 1906 he made a tour of the United States, conducting his own works with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Although he has written two or three operas his best compositions have been for instrumental music. He has also written biographies and books on musical instruction.

INERTIA (in-er'shē-ä), the incapability of matter to change its state, whether that be one of motion or rest. If in motion, it will continue so forever unless some counteractive force, like that of gravity, act upon it. If at rest, it will ever remain so unless a counteractive impulse set it in motion. The resistance which, especially at first, it gives to such a force operating to move it is called vis inertiæ—the power of inertia.

INERTIA, CENTER OF. See Center.

INFALLIBILITY, a quality or state of freedom or exemption from error.

Papal infallibility, a claim defined on July 18, 1870, in the Œcumenical Council, held in the Vatican under the presidency of Pope Pius IX.

"We teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed that the Roman pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedrâ, that is, when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the Universal Church, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed for defining doctrine regarding faith or morals; and that therefore such definitions of the Roman pontiff are irreformable."

Till the decision of the Vatican Council in favor of the Pope's infallibility this opinion, though for centuries it had had numerous advocates, especially in Italy, had never been authoritatively decided. When it ceased to be an open question, some German scholars, of whom Professor Döllinger, of Munich, was the most noted, seceded from the Roman Church, and in September, 1871, took the name of Old Catholics.

INFANT MORTALITY, one of those social problems which has troubled humanitarians for the past century, and the statesmen in those countries where the birth rate now tends to drop below the death rate. So far as records show, back to the most ancient times, infant mortality has always been very heavy, which, indeed, is true of all animal life. For centuries this was regarded as an inevitable natural incident, not without its beneficent aspect, since it was believed that only the unfit failed to survive. After the industrial revolution, caused by the invention of steam driven machinery, which brought about our modern factory system of industry, with its consequent congregation of great numbers of poor people in populous centers, infant mortality tended to increase at a prodigious rate. Then, about a hundred years ago, sociologists turned their attention to this phenomenon, and began to investigate into causes.

Careful study then brought out the fact that it was not by any means only the unfit who died, or the better individuals, physically or morally, that survived. On the contrary, it was found that often it was the children of the better people who died, because they were least adaptable to the deplorable conditions attending the poverty and congestion of the big cities. As an instance, careful investigation proved that the poorer class people of London were gradually becoming stunted of stature, as compared to the same class of people in the rural districts.

As a result of these many years of close study of causes and effects, it is known that ignorance most of all is the cause of the heavy death rate of infants, especially ignorance of hygiene and proper diet. The country mother seldom fails to be able to nurse her children till they are past the period of the most danger, but the mother who lives in the penury of an industrial center, and on account of poor food and having to work in a factory, is seldom able to do so. Improper substitutes for mother's milk is, therefore, one of the chief causes of infant mortality. This was proven no longer ago than in 1919, when, through an investigation in Saginaw, Mich., it was discovered that of every thousand mothers who worked for a living, 132 lost a child, whereas of an equal number of mothers who did not work, but stayed at home to care for their children, only 78 had lost a child. Another important cause of infant mortality is the impurity